Category Archives: Community Health Partnerships

How do you engage community residents in their health when many are distrustful of and feel disrespected by the healthcare system?

Encourage them to both direct and participate in the initiative, advises Charmaine Ruddock, project director of Bronx Health REACH.

In this HealthSounds episode, Ms. Ruddock shares what Bronx Health REACH learned early on in its coalition-building from community focus groups, and how this local feedback informed program development for a community traditionally ranked last in New York in terms of health outcomes and health factors.

During Innovative Community-Clinical Partnerships: Reducing Racial and Ethnic Health Disparities through Community Transformation, a November 2017 webinar now available for replay, Ms. Ruddock shares the unique partnerships forged by Bronx Health REACH with area faith-based programs, bodegas, restaurants, schools, clinics and art groups and how these partnerships promote the health and well-being of area residents. Program highlights include partnering with the American Bodega Association and bodega suppliers to increase healthy purchase options; engaging clinics and patients in a Vegetable and Fruit Rx program to encourage healthy eating in obese patients; encouraging teachers to add nutrition education to their curriculum; promoting healthy eating options at Bronx restaurants via ‘The Bronx Salad;’ facilitating discounts for SNAP beneficiaries for healthy items.